Indian Logic Part 03

Author(s): Nagin J Shah
Publisher: Sanskrit Sanskriti Granthmala

Page 13

INDIAN LOGIC
his assessment of Vedas, the section (3) implicitly tells us how he. differs from the latter in his assessment of the scriptural texts other than Vedas, while section (4) explicitly tells us how both will defend Vedas against rival attacks. In the background of this much general information these sections can be examined one by one. (1) Vedas - an authorless composition or a composition by God
Jayanta begins by offering the following inference : "Vedic sentential constructions must presuppose an author, because they are sentential constructions, like sentential constructions found in a nonVedic text." Against this the Mimārsaka offers a counter-inference as follows : "All study of Vedas must presuppose a prior study by the student's preceptor, because this is what is meant by the phrase a study of Vedas', like today's study of Vedas." Jayanta submits that in the Mimāṁsaka's inference the probans is not relevant for proving the probandum, to which is added that a similar statement can be made also about Mahābhārata. The Mimāṁsaka pleads that in the case of Mahābhārata it is unanimously recalled that it was, composed by Vyāsa; Jayanta retorts that in the case of Vedas too it is unanimously recalled that it was composed by Prajāpati (= God). The Mīmāṁsaka submits that the Vedic references to Prajāpati do not mean to refer to God; Jayanta replies that that way one might as well say that the Mahābhārata references to Vyāsa do not mean to refer to its author - the two references being of the same character. Jayanta's statements are typical of a Purāņist who would interpret the Vedic references to Prajāpati as references to God supposed to be the author of Vedas and who would find nothing anomalous about Mahābhārata containing a reference to its own author. On the other hand, the Mimāṁsaka might have been thoroughly mistaken in his belief that Vedas are an authorless. composition but in rejecting Jayanta's suggestion that they are a composition by God he was on solid grounds. In any case, when the Mimāṁsaka submits that nobody has come across the author of Vedas, Jayanta asks: "Did your father or grandfather come across Vyāsa ?"" The Mimāṁsaka elaborates his point as follows : “Vedas are so important a text that had they been composed by an author he would not have been forgotten by the generations of students-ofVedas. Moreover, the idea that. God composed Vedas at the time of world-creation makes no sense simply because the idea that theře ever took place world-creation makes no sense. And even if God